Preparations for Startup Village 2014 are on the move. The event is deemed to be a most high-profile event of the year for the Russian startup community. It will be held June 2-3, 2014 in the Skolkovo Innovation Center. Peter Vesterbacka, Rahul Sud, Alessandro Curioni and many other gurus of the global innovation community have already confirmed their attendance. The Startup Village is a global event where scientists, innovation entrepreneurs, officials, investors and students will meet to discuss technology ideas and business projects. Startup Village’s unique concept combines elements of the best American and European startup festivals to create a remarkable environment for open real-life communication. The event is comprised of the three major sections: the Contest, the Startup Market and the Conference. The following speakers have already confirmed their attendance: PEKKA VILJAKAINEN , advisor to the President of the Skolkovo Foundation for startup relations – “My biggest failures as a leader & entrepreneur” Beginning his career as an entrepreneur, Mr. Viljakainen founded Oy Visual Systems Ltd. in 1986. In 1998, Oy Visual Systems Ltd. was acquired by Tieto. With Tieto, Mr. Viljakainen was engaged in complex issues of business procedures administration and political issues in large multinational organizations. He was fully engaged in the promotion and preparation of the digital service revolution and played a strategic role in digital service development in the European, Russian, and Chinese markets. Mr. Viljakainen was the manager of 8,350 employees spread across 24 countries. He chose to resign his position on November 1, 2010. In the winter of 2011, Mr. Viljakainen made a commitment to the “No FEAR. The COMMUNITY” project, which was to unite managers of the largest corporations in a global network. THOMAS TORF , Senior Vice-President of Strategic Customer Engagements, Product & Innovation at SAP – “International Startup: How to Create. Development and Launch Strategies” Thomas has more than 20 years of executive management experience in global sales, professional services, R&D, marketing, and field operations in high-tech industry. He leads a Global team of product (HANA and other SAP products) and industry experts to support customers in understanding how HANA can help improve their business performance. Before joining SAP, Tomas headed Convenos, and took senior administrative posts in various cloud/SaaS startups, such as PlaceWare (later acquired by Microsoft), Borland Software Corporation, Sybase and Cap Gemini. NATALYA KASPERSKAYA , General Director of InfoWatch group, Co-Founder of Kaspersky Lab “International Startup: How to Create. Development and Launch Strategies” In 1997, together with Eugene Kaspersky, she established Kaspersky Lab and took the post of its General Director. In Kasperskaya’s 10 years of management at Kaspersky Lab, the previously unknown startup turned into one of the leaders in the international IT market, with a $0.5 billion turnover. Natalya Kasperskaya is the winner of various international awards for information technologies, including: • Bronze Winner of the “TOP-100 Most Influential Women in Russia” rating in the Business sector. • Laureate of the prestigious international award “Russian Business Leader of the Year,” for her contributions to Russian IT industry development, according to Horasis, the Global visions community. • Leader of the “TOP-1,000 Russian Senior Managers” rating in the Information Technologies segment, according to Kommersant Publishing House, and the Russian Managers Association, Corporate Innovations sector. PETER VESTERBACKA , Co-Founder of Rovio Mobile “Think as a Startup” Mr. Vesterbacka has been doing business for more than 20 years, and in that time has established 10 companies. In 2010, Mr. Vesterbacka co-founded Rovio, which later developed the Angry Birds mobile application. Mr. Vesterbacka serves as a Marketing Director, the first ambassador of the brand, and is responsible for innovation in the company. Ranked among the "100 Most Influential People in the World" by TIME magazine in 2011. KAUSHAL CHOKSHI , Founder and President with Scaale Group A serial entrepreneur and investor, Mr. Chokshi has founded over 20 companies in the USA, Europe, and Asia over the last three decades, with 3 successful exits and an IPO. In 2006, Kaushal sold all his companies to focus on his big project, Scaale Group, a group of companies dedicated to implementing solutions for startups, small and medium businesses, corporations and governments. Headquartered in San Francisco, Scaale Group is comprised of 7 companies and a team of more than 300 employees, spread over 10 countries. Scaale’s local and global presence provides Mr. Chokshi with real time knowledge of trends, opportunities and new ways of doing business around the globe. Born and raised in India, Mr. Chokshi studied Electrical Engineering and Management. He later moved to the UK, and then lived in Germany. For most of the past 20 years he has been living in United States. DAVE MCCLURE , Venture Investor and General Founding Partner of 500 Startups program. A venture investor and general founding partner of 500 Startups program, uniting an online seed investment fund and accelerator startups in Mountain View, California. Mr. McClure has been working in the Silicon Valley for over 20 years, with such companies as PayPal, Mint.com, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O'Reilly, Intel, and Microsoft. When his knees do not bother him, he loves playing Ultimate Frisbee. For the last 10 years Dave has invested in more than 600 companies, including, among others, Mint.com (acquired by INTU), SlideShare (acquired by LNKD), Twilio, Makerbot (acquired by SSYS), SendGrid, Credit Karma, Wildfire Interactive (acquired by GOOG), Mashery (acquired by INTU). ARTEM OGANOV , Scientist, Professor at the State University of New York, Head of Materials Design Laboratory at the State University of New York, Associate Professor in MSU – “Who Develop New Materials and How They Do That?” Graduated from the Department of Crystallography, Geological Faculty of Moscow State University; Ph.D., the University of London, UK; Dr.Sc., ETH Zürich, Switzerland. Mr. Oganov is the author of over 120 scientific papers, holder of two patents, and is on the list of “50 Russians Who Conquered the World,” according to Forbes magazine. SERGEY ABRAMOV , Professor, Doctor of Sciences (Physics and Mathematics), Associate Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Aylamazyan Program Systems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of Research Center for Multiprocessor Systems (RSMS). Dr. Abramov is a scientist in system programming and information technologies (supercomputer systems, telecommunication technologies, theory of structural meta-systems and meta-computations). In Aylamazyan Program Systems Institute he teaches courses in “Meta-Computations”, “Computer and Systems Architecture”, “Computations Systems, Networks and Communications”, and “Functional Programming (Haskell)”. Dr. Abramov offered a course of lectures in “Metacomputations and application thereof,” within extended education program at MSU’s Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. Dr. Abramov is the author of several scientific papers. The Governor of the Yaroslavl Region awarded Dr. Abramov the "For Services to Science" badge of honor. He is a laureate of the Russian Government Award in the field of science and technology. ALESSANDRO CURION I, IBM Fellow, Department Head, Cognitive Computing and Computational Sciences, IBM Research Laboratory, Zurich, Switzerland Open stage “Supercomputers for Everyone” Dr. Alessandro Curioni received his undergraduate degree in Theoretical Chemistry and his Ph.D. in Computational Material Science from Scuola Normale Superiore (University), Pisa, Italy. Is a world-known expert in high-performance computations, and currently deals with the scaling issues for massively parallel systems, e.g. Blue Gene. His novel approaches have helped solve a variety of the most difficult scientific and technical problems. PERCY TZELNIC , Fellow, Senior Vice-President in ЕМС Corporation, CTO’s Office, EMC Fast Data Group – “Supercomputers for Everyone” Dr. Tzelnik received his Ph.D. from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Tzelnik once founded and managed Network Attached Storage Division in EMC. Since 1994, the project has been implemented as an "internal startup" of the corporation to develop new product lines for the network storage market. He led the development and creation of a number of networked storage systems based on processors from Intel, such as, Celerra File Server, Celerra Media Server, Backup and Archival Server. Dr. Tzelnik headed market development that contributed to an increase in corporate revenue growth until 2010, when the sales volumes for Celerra family systems reached $1.5 billion and EMC Corporation became the leader of network attached storage market. Prior to joining EMC, Dr. Tzelnik led the Network Technologies Development team at Digital Equipment Corporation from 1989 until 1994. For the two years prior to that, he was Software Development Director with Bytex. From 1981 until 1987 he was VS Operating Systems Development Director with Wang Laboratories, and earlier taught computational sciences at two universities in the USA and abroad, and conducted research in the field of theoretical physics ALEXEY SHMELEV , Executive Director with RSC group Alexey Shmelev is a co-founder of RSC and has managed the company since 2009. He has extensive experience in the Russian IT market since 1996. Mr. Shmelev is responsible for operations of RSC Group, strategic business planning, and manages matters of key customers relations. He graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University (Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics), Ph.D. (Physics and Mathematics). LIZ FLEMING , Deputy Director, Venture Lab & Associate Professor, IE Business School Ms. Fleming is Deputy Director for the Venture Lab at IE Business School, where she is responsible for expediting 50 teams and spinning out on average 10 startups per year. She is also the founder of the Venture Network and head of the Co-investment Network of the Spanish Startup Co-Investment Fund, a €40m seed fund run in collaboration with Enisa, Spain’s leading government agency for innovation. Ms. Fleming is also a Mentor for Wayra and an Investor in Invoost. She was listed as one of Europe’s Top 100 Women in Tech, and sits on the steering committee of the Startup Europe Partnership, a platform for scaling startups in Europe launched by the EU Commission. MENG WENG WONG , Co-Founder, JFDI.Asia Meng Weng Wong is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. His two previous ventures, founded during his time in Philadelphia and the Silicon Valley, pobox.com and karmasphere.com, have been associated with problems of e-mail security and exploring the problems of analysis of "big data" on an Internet-wide scale for reputation systems. In Singapore, Mr. Wong is actively involved in the local startup community as a business angel, a member of the Board of Directors of the Network of Business Angels Southeast Asia, and founder of JFDI. Asia, the first Singaporean business accelerator. He is also works as a mentor with the Founder Institute and business school INSEAD. PEKKA SOIN I, General Director, Tekes Pekka Soini is the General Director of Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation. Previously, he headed the Department of Corporate Development at Nokia Siemens Networks, was the director of the Finnish Branch and a member of the company’s senior management. Mr. Soini joined Nokia in 1987, where he held several global business management positions, including the Head for Strategy & Technology and VP of M&S of Nokia Telecommunications. Mr. Soini is a member of a number of government and business councils, including the Council for Research and Innovation in Finland. LAURENT PROBST , Partner, Founder of PwC Accelerator in Luxembourg Laurent Probst is a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and leads R&D subdivision within PwC’s advisory activities in Luxembourg. After establishing a research center for investment management, Mr. Probst spent last 11 years actively engaged in the implementation of initiatives in the field of economic development and the creation of clusters for government organizations and regional authorities. Mr. Probst initiated and participated in the establishment of international partnerships in medical and life sciences, the agricultural industry, and information technologies. The money raised as a result of this work to create a local research base to address a number of economic problems amounted, in August 2010, to more than $ 200 million. Mr. Probst also did his nit in advancement of tax and statutory regulations and improvement of financial investment tools to support economic advancement. He has served as an advisor for several non-profit organizations in regards to improving their financial capabilities to implement food safety, public health care, and economic growth programs. Mr. Probst is a regular advisor to European, national, and regional authorities on matters of economic advancement and financial strategies. He was appointed Head of the Regional Innovation Cluster group within the PwC chain. Mr. Probst is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the Open Foundation for Construction of the Future Image of Luxembourg (Fondation Ouverte pour la Construction de l'Avenir du Luxembourg, FOCAL) and sits in the Advisory Council of Fondation de Luxembourg. Laurent established PwC Accelerator center (pwcaccelerator.com), aimed at supporting and providing access to PwC resources for fast-growing innovation companies from all over the world, targeting development to multinational corporation levels. SERGEY GRIBOV , Managing Partner, StartUp Access A serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience, Mr. Gribov has served as a top manager or a co-founder in various startups in Israel, America and Russia, and enjoys extensive experience in different IT sectors, such as software development, VoIP, bioinformatics, finances, e-commerce and social network service. Mr. Gribov is now a managing partner in Startup Access, a Boston-based organization helping startups establish contacts with key figures at the MIT and Boston business ecosystems, and organizing so named two-week business incubator. Mr. Gribov also performs as an angel investor, and sits on the board of directors. He is also a mentor for certain IT companies in Russia and in the USA. Mr. Gribov has MIT’s MBA degree and a Beersheba University diploma with high honors in “Information Technologies”. The organizers expect that Startup Village 2014 will be visited by some 7,000 participants from over 10 countries, 320 investors, 260 partners, 150 journalists, as well as scientists, innovation entrepreneurs, students and representatives of large corporations and state authorities. Please register! See you at Startup Village! Reference information: Official web-site Startup Village 2014: http://startupvillage.ru/